Theistic Reasoning

[bluegreenearth]

There are few things more intellectually dishonest than non-negotiable confidence in a theistic belief. Theists should, at the very least, be willing to acknowledge the possibility that they might be mistaken in their belief regardless of their level of confidence in it. So, if you are a confident theist, do the responsible thing and work with us to help you discover where any logical fallacies or other cognitive errors might exist in the reasoning process you are using justify your religious belief.

This isn't to presume that you haven't already performed this sort of critical analysis yourself or to imply that I or anyone else participating in the peer review process is your intellectual superior. To the contrary, if your reasoning process is demonstrably reliable or superior, then sharing it will do me and the other participants a great intellectual service. Alternatively, if any errors happen to be exposed in your reasoning process, you benefit from the opportunity to correct for those errors and it wouldn't mean your theistic belief is false. Therefore, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose from cooperating.

Now, if your theistic reasoning process is complex and nuanced, it won't be practical to post a lengthy dissertation on this thread. Instead, if possible, try to break-down your reasoning process into discreet components and permit us to evaluate it one step at a time.

Finally, despite my attempt to carefully word this OP in such a way to avoid or mitigate for potential misinterpretations, I'm fairly confident at least one theist is going to post an objection to something I wrote that was not deliberately intended. If you are that theist, please just ask for a clarification before submitting your objection or leveling accusations against me. Thank you.

[Divine Insight]

My friend, I have been on this site for over six years now, day, after day, and have given reasons for what it is I believe along with why I believe as I do. There would be no way to escape this.

Exactly my point. You've been on here for six years and haven't been able to make a compelling argument yet. That speaks volumes.

What is not surprising to me, is former Christians who admit to being convinced Christianity was true, who go on to admit they did not put forth a whole lot of effort into thinking, coming to the conclusion that all Christians came to their beliefs in the same way, which causes them to believe that a Christian can come up with a few little things which convinced them, since it only took a few little things to convince those who were former Christians.

Unlike you, I haven't fallen into the trap of tribal warfare.

I don't even try to guess what other Christians might have done toward researching their religious theology. Nor do I even care.

What I do know is this; None of them have yet been able to provide compelling arguments for their theology. The vast majority of them just parrot the popular apologies that have long since been shown to be illogical and without merit. In fact, when they parrot those clearly false apologies it reveals that they haven't truly given them much thought at all. Or if they have, then they are extremely poor thinkers.

The Bible proves itself to be false. The story of the Canaanites gives the Bible away for certain. No God could be that stupid. Of course, that's only one of the many self-contradictory tales of the Bible.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Bible has proved itself to be false.

Your tribal warfare against non-believers and ex-Christians is utterly meaningless. It has no value whatsoever.

To the contrary, your need to try to belittle your debate opponents directly only proves that you have nothing of substance to offer.

I make no judgements against you as an individual. You either have evidence to offer to support this theology, or you don't. Clearly you don't since you are incapable of producing it and cannot post anything other than evasion posts.

Apparently all you can do is play tribal warfare trying to belittle debate opponents in an endless distraction tactic to evade having to confess that you have no evidence to support the religion yourself.

I'm not the slightest bit interested in playing these kinds of meaningless games.

If you have evidence to offer in support of your theology, just do it.

If not, then you may as well own up to it now. Six yeas of playing delay tactics is getting old. In fact, after having had six years of experience at this you should be able to post a very succinct numerical list of precisely the evidence you feel is most important. But since you can't even list so much as a single point it's clear that you haven nothing to offer.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 225 by Realworldjack]

So then, it would be intellectually dishonest for me to suggest that, "I have a lack of belief" when I have been convinced the claims to be true.

It would be intellectually honest to endorse a lack of belief and emotionally honest to admit having the temptation to believe. It would be intellectually dishonest to defend a belief as though it were true when it has not been demonstrated to be true. If you aren't doing this, then you aren't being intellectually dishonest. For the most part, you give me the impression that you are being intellectually honest by admitting where your belief hasn't been demonstrated to be true. What I fail to understand is why you don't endorse a lack of belief even though you admit the truth cannot be demonstrated in the case of the resurrection claim.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 225 by Realworldjack]

You continue to bring up, "confirmation bias" as if I have some sort of desire for Christianity to be true?

I've already demonstrated by an example where confirmation bias functions on a subconscious level and need not have anything to do with whether you desire for the belief to be true or false. I've also demonstrated where it is possible to mitigate for confirmation bias. The concept of confirmation bias that I've described is not contested. Your continuing failure to comprehend this concept is unfortunate.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 225 by Realworldjack]

The only difference I am seeing here is, I am being honest about what I am convinced of, while you are just as convinced Christianity would be false, but claim to hold a neutral position, when this is not the case.

I endorse a neutral position despite the temptation to believe Christianity is false because that is the intellectually honest thing to do. Are you suggesting that I should be defending the position that Christianity is false rather than endorsing skepticism?

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 225 by Realworldjack]

The problem here is, I am not tempted to believe a resurrection occurred? I am more inclined to believe that it did not occur. However, I cannot get past the facts, and evidence in support.

You claim to be inclined to believe the resurrection did not occur, but the supporting facts and evidence influence you to believe nonetheless. At the same time, the supporting facts and evidence do not conclusively demonstrate the resurrection claim is true. By definition, then, you are "tempted" to believe a resurrection occurred by the inconclusive facts and evidence. Since you acknowledge that your belief could be mistaken, it would be more intellectually honest to admit where the inconclusive facts and evidence tempt you to believe Christianity is true despite your preference for it to be false but endorse a lack of belief on account of an inability to meet the required burden of proof. Of course, if you want to change your story and claim the supporting facts and evidence conclusively demonstrate the resurrection occurred, then you are welcome to take on that burden of proof.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 223 by Divine Insight]

I will add that, to complete a long journey, you have to at least take one step forward. If RWJ cares enough about whether he has reliable reasons to believe Christianity is true, then he will patiently cooperate in the effort to make that determination. If doesn't care about whether his reasons for believing are reliable or not, he will continue to waste time complaining while offering no solutions.

Okay? So I have asked you in another post, where you would like me to begin? Would you like me to give you just one reason, and we will work from there? The fact of the matter is, this whole time I have been supplying reasons which you have ignored, and have never addressed?

So, it seems as if you need to get off the bench, and step to the plate, because you have more than enough to critic, you are just avoiding.

The reasons you've supplied to justify your belief in the resurrection claim have not been demonstrated to be reliable. Reliable reasons, when applied consistently, will not produce contradictory or incompatible beliefs. When I attempt to apply your reasoning consistently, I ultimately end up with contradictory or incompatible beliefs. This leaves me with three options as best as I can determine:

1) Accept your reasoning and any contradictory or incompatible beliefs which follow from it.

2) Commit a special pleading fallacy to accept your reasoning only in the case of the resurrection belief and in no other circumstances.

2) Reject your reasoning as unreliable and search for more reliable reasons to justify the resurrection belief.

[Danmark]

When I began to study Christianity, I acknowledge the fact that I had no way to know if it would be true, which is exactly why I began to study in the first place.
....
You continue to bring up, "confirmation bias" as if I have some sort of desire for Christianity to be true? While I am certain there are many Christians who have such a desire, I can only imagine that it is because they do not have a correct understanding of what it would actually mean. My point is, I would much rather believe Christianity to be false, because who would desire to believe it to be true? I find nothing appealing to believe about it?

This is an extraordinary post.
First you appear to claim you were completely unbiased about the truth of Chrsitianity when you began to study. I find this to be unbelievable. Why study it in the first place if it has no special place in your mind?

Then you claim to have no 'confirmation bias.' This is equally unbelievable. Reasonable scientists acknowledge they, and everyone else, has confirmation bias. That is the reason for double blind experiments. Bias creeps in even when we are not conscious of it. Of course you suffer from confirmation bias. We all do. Denying such a bias only assures that bias will influence your conclusions.

3rdly you say you ask

"who would desire to believe it [Christianity] to be true? I find nothing appealing to believe about it."

Again I find these statements to be unbelievable. Why, and on what basis, would a Christian claim there is nothing appealing about his faith?

If nothing else, that faith preaches that in the end, justice will triumph and good people will live forever with joy in paradise. Yes, that sounds ridiculous, but that is the claim and the appeal to all who wish to suspend disbelief in order to be comforted.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to post 225 by Realworldjack]

...then there must, and has to be very good reasons to believe Christianity to be true...

What makes a reason "good" or "bad" is subjective and contingent upon the epistemology of the believer. People used to have "good" reasons to believe the sun revolved around a flat and stationary Earth because that was the extent of knowledge their limited epistemology would allow. I have no trouble agreeing that those ancient people had "good" reasons for their belief in that context. Today, however, we argue that modern people who believe the Earth is flat and stationary do not have "good" reasons for holding that belief because they are choosing to reject a more reliable epistemology which would allow them to acquire sufficient knowledge to demonstrate the Earth is round and rotating on its axis. Equivalently, given the limitations of your epistemology, I can understand why you judge your reasoning to be good. I will grant that, within the context of your limited epistemology, you have good reasons to believe Christianity is true. Meanwhile, within the context of my limited epistemology, your reasoning is demonstrably flawed. Since I've found my limited epistemology to be more reliable than your limited epistemology, I am justified in rejecting your reasoning. You are welcome to reject my more reliable epistemology if you want to, but I'm not sure what your rational would be for preferring a less reliable epistemology.

As you seem to admit, we have facts, evidence, and reason to support the claims in the NT. We have the claims themselves, and we have overwhelming evidence that these men continued to make these claims in the face of those who would have had every reason to put a stop the claims, and we know that these men did in fact face persecution, prison, and even death for making the claims, and we also have overwhelming evidence in support of the fact that these men continued to make these claims well into their old age, facing all these things. These men could have simply ceased making such claims, and could have avoided all of this nonsense they would have never had to face.

However, not only did they continue to make the claims, they also went on to leave letters, addressed to those at the time, addressing concerns at the time, with no concern, nor any idea that anyone else would ever read these letters, other than the intended audience at the time, which is clear evidence, of how they were living their lives, along with what it was they claim to have witnessed.

In other words, the letters we have contained in the NT, are not letters these authors intended for the world to read, but were rather simply the by product of how these men continued to live their lives.

What we do not have, is any facts, and evidence, which would support the idea that these men would have been involved in the disappearance of the body, and would have known it all to be a lie, and continued in the face of all this persecution, to continue to proclaim what they would have known to be a lie. In fact, as we think about what all would have to be involved in such a feat, it would be incredible.

However, we are to suppose, these men who had just witnessed their leader violently killed right in front of their eyes, did not grieve at all, but rather, in a matter of a few days, these men come up with a plan, to get rid of the body, right in front of those who would be expecting it, are successful, and continue to proclaim what they know to be false, knowing it could only cause them trouble, which it did?

My friend, I could continue on, and am tempted to do so, but as I have said, we do not have the time, or the space to think through all that would be involved, in each, and every scenario. The bottom line is again, we have facts, and evidence to support the claims. However, we have no facts, or evidence to suggest any sort of deceit would have been involved, and we are to simply assume, there must, and had to be?

People used to have "good" reasons to believe the sun revolved around a flat and stationary Earth because that was the extent of knowledge their limited epistemology would allow. I have no trouble agreeing that those ancient people had "good" reasons for their belief in that context. Today, however, we argue that modern people who believe the Earth is flat and stationary do not have "good" reasons for holding that belief because they are choosing to reject a more reliable epistemology which would allow them to acquire sufficient knowledge to demonstrate the Earth is round and rotating on its axis.

Your problem here is the fact that, those folks who believed the earth was flat at the time, as you say, "had good reason" to believe as they did, because there was certainly evidence to go on. However, once the issue has been demonstrated, there is no longer reason to believe this way. As far as the resurrection is concerned, nothing has been demonstrated. Rather, all we have are the facts, and evidence, and one can look at these facts, and evidence come to certain conclusions based upon these facts, and evidence. What this means is, there may be those who become convinced these reports would be false. Others may be convinced the reports would be true. While others may want to hold out believing there is not enough evidence either way.

I am fine with whatever position another may hold. My problem comes in when there are those who insist there would be no reason to believe the claims, but you seem to be admitting, there are indeed reasons to in support of the claims.

I will grant that, within the context of your limited epistemology, you have good reasons to believe Christianity is true. Meanwhile, within the context of my limited epistemology, your reasoning is demonstrably flawed. Since I've found my limited epistemology to be more reliable than your limited epistemology, I am justified in rejecting your reasoning. You are welcome to reject my more reliable epistemology if you want to, but I'm not sure what your rational would be for preferring a less reliable epistemology.

All you are saying here is, we have a difference of opinion, with neither of us being able to demonstrate which opinion, if either, would be the better opinion. You seem to be under the opinion, that we all should not make a stand either way until, or unless something has been demonstrated to be a fact, and I have no problem with such an opinion. However, it is my opinion, along with many others, "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck"!

So then, it is not my stand that the resurrection has been demonstrated to be a fact. Rather, it is my stand that, "it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck".

I will have to assume with the position you hold, that you hold no position at all concerning the human evolving from any other life form, since this has not been demonstrated to be a fact? However, there are those who are convinced this would indeed be a fact, and they are convinced by the facts, and evidence in support. Of course, there are others who argue this would be false, and go on to give facts, and evidence against such an idea. In this situation, I happen to take the same position which you hold concerning the resurrection, which is, I am not convinced either way as of yet, and am holding out for further evidence.

However, I do not insist that those on either side have any sort of fault in their thinking, until, or unless, they begin to suggest the issue has been settled.

In the end, there really is no difference in our positions. In other words, you are convinced the claims in the NT would be false, while claiming to hold a neutral position. This is no different than claiming to be convinced the claims are false, while acknowledging the claims cannot be demonstrated to be false. In the same way, I am convinced by the facts, and evidence, (not simply tempted to believe, but actually do in fact believe) that the claims are indeed true.

Because you see, there is a tremendous difference between claiming to be convinced the claims would in fact be true, as opposed to claiming the claims would indeed be true, and can be demonstrated to be true. Because you see, my position is the more intellectual honest position, in that I am not hiding the fact that I am truly convinced, and in this way, I do not have to demonstrate that the claims would in fact be true, but can rather go on to explain the facts, and evidence which has convinced my mind, allowing others to examine the facts for themselves, making their own minds up, while not insisting that there must, and has to be some sort of flaw in their thinking process.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 236 by Realworldjack]

Your problem here is the fact that, those folks who believed the earth was flat at the time, as you say, "had good reason" to believe as they did, because there was certainly evidence to go on.

The point is that those people felt the available facts and evidence provided good reasons to believe the Earth was flat and stationary, but confidence in their belief was not justified. Despite having supporting evidence for their belief, they could have acknowledged the limitations of their epistemology but failed to do so. Contradictory evidence was not required to demonstrate where the available supporting facts and evidence were insufficient to justify their confident belief. Any reasonable ancient person needed only to recognize the limitations imposed by perspective to have understood where the flat and stationary Earth belief was not justified even without evidence to the contrary.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 236 by Realworldjack]

I will have to assume with the position you hold, that you hold no position at all concerning the human evolving from any other life form, since this has not been demonstrated to be a fact?

Evolution is defined as biological descent with modification. Every human being is observed to be a slightly modified version of their parents who were slightly modified versions of their parents and so on all the way back millions of years until the cumulative amount of slight modifications is significant enough for our descendants to have been a different species from modern humans. There is nothing about this process that requires us to invoke anything supernatural at any time because the observed chemical interactions in DNA provides us with a natural physical mechanism. Therefore, the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is currently the most reasonable and least ad hoc explanation for the observed fact that human evolution has occurred and continues to slowly and gradually occur with every new generation.

As with all scientific theories, the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection makes future testable predictions and will be discarded the moment anyone succeeds in disproving it. For the time being, the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection continues to succeed in making future testable predictions and passes every test designed to falsify it. That is what makes any theory reliable. So, tentative acceptance of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is justifiable in this regard. However, healthy skepticism remains warranted because we cannot rule-out the possibility that a more reliable and testable explanation for human evolution may yet be discovered.